Is This Wrong?

Editor's Note: This article is one long spoiler. Read at your own risk if you haven't already watched the first season of Loki.

We saw a number of different Lokis during the first season of Loki -- Old Man Loki, Child Loki, Genghis Loki, Alligator Loki -- but probably the most interesting one was Sylvie, the female "Loki". She had a grudge against the TVA for taking her out of her timeline when she was only a little girl, sending her to her death which (of course) she avoided. She spent her days hiding in various calamities, growing up in one apocalypse after another and never having the childhood she deserved. Her need for revenge against the TVA was understandable, and it certainly gave her a different perspective from all of her "brothers", all the other Lokis.

One moment in particular, though, is worth discussing: LokiThe half-brother of of Thor wouldn't be considered as big of a character as he is were it not for Tom Hiddleston. That actor, performing Loki in a series of films for the MCU took an also ran villain and made him into one of the most popular characters in the run. (Tom Hiddleston) falls for Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) after they're forced to spend an apocalypse together, and then as they go on their adventure, relying on each other, it does feel like the connection between the two grows. At the climax, as Loki tries to get Sylvie to pause, to think, to realize that killing the bad guy at the end of the quest (who is an alternate version of Kang the Konquerer), the two share a kiss in the heat of the moment.... and then she kicks him through a time door so she can go about her killing business.

I want to discuss if that was wrong. Not the killing, the kissing. If we take the whole concept of "variants" of a character at face value that would bean that Sylvie and Loki are, effectively the same person. Even if they aren't, one would assume they are two related versions of the same person, one filling in for the other on the time line. That would seem to be incest, right? I mean, yes, we have to get around the idea of someone having incestuous sex (or just kissing for now) with a time-displaced alternate of themselves, but genetically two Lokis doing the nasty and having a kid would lead to a very inbred child, right?

I know there's been some comments Online about just this topic, and it would seem like at best Loki having sex with Sylvie would be like him having sex with his sister (or Thor, if the two could somehow reproduce and make the world's more gorgeous children). Even taking into account that they're from different timelines they're still effectively family. Their kiss should have been even weirder than the kiss Captain AmericaCreated by Simon and Kirby in 1941, Captain America was a super soldier created to fight Germany and the evil HYDRA. Then he was lost in the ice, only to be found and reborn decades later as the great symbol of the USA. shared with Sharon Carter in Captain America: Civil War (a moment fans hated so Marvel absolutely walked it back in later films). This just seems very icky.

While I'm not one to talk up incest (seriously, we're not writing a "pro-incest" article here), I do think it's worth considering whether or not these characters are, in fact, actually related (on a genetic level). Sure, they were both raised by the same family in Asgard, but that's no surprise; if they weren't both raised in the slot assigned to a "Loki" -- child of Odin and Freya, sibling to Thor -- then they wouldn't really be a Loki at all, they'd just be some random schmuck no one cared about. But being a blood child of the King and Queen of Asgard isn't a requirement for being a Loki; as we know, Loki isn't actually blood kin with any of the royalty of Asgard, he was adopted.

That's actually an important note to make because while it's not really raised again after the first movie, Loki is a Ice Giant child. Raised from the time he was a baby in Asgard, Loki was treated like a child of Asgard even though he technically wasn't one. But what if Sylvie really is a child of Asgard? Where Loki was just an adopted boy Sylvie may be a true-blood daughter of Asgard. We never see her make any mention of being an Ice Giant, and in fact that only detail we know is that her mother died when she was very young. So maybe she was adopted, or maybe Freya died (possibly in childbirth) after having Sylvie.

If the two aren't technically, genetically related then Loki kissing Sylvie isn't as big a deal. Yes it is weird that two people that would consider themselves siblings to Thor would kiss each other, and that's just as strange as when to step-siblings, or adopted siblings, decide to bone. That's a weird level of incestuousness that still feels icky even if its not genetically wrong. But considering the fact that Sylvie basically grew up on her own and didn't have her Asgardian family, maybe even then it's not as strange. Yes, the TVA considers both of them to be "Loki", but the TVA is wrong about so many things on the show perhaps we shouldn't listen to them about this, either.

All that being on the table, I do think it's unlikely that the two characters will ever get that close again. Sylvie does betray Loki at the end of the season, and then essentially brings about an end to the stability of the "Sacred Timeline". She's created yet another apocalypse, and she had to do it against Loki's specific warnings. That might just be a bridge too far for the two of them, a rift between them that, even if they were to see each other again, they may never be able to heal.

But, at a more practical level, characters in the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (outside of Tony Stark) don't have sex. This has been mentioned on a number of other sites before, but yes, the MCU is amazingly devoid of sexy time. The sex lives of the characters is even more barren than Catwoman's pussy when she asks Batman to go down on her. The most we ever get are a few chaste kisses but none of the characters ever fall into bed with each other. Sex is apparently something that just doesn't occur in the MCU, at least not after Iron Man.

Were the two Lokis, Loki and Sylvie, to be in the same room with each other again, and were they able to get over themselves and fall in love, I doubt we would ever see them "get a room". Disney seems to be against the very idea of their Marvel characters having anything even close to sexy times together. Hell, Cap went back in time to be with Peggy Carter and all they got to have was a slow dance (that we saw). These characters just do not get to bone at all and it's a little sad for them. Anyone hoping for Loki-on-Loki action is going to be left severely disappointed.

I don't personally feel like we need that; the character arc we have of the two circling each other as equals but never finding a connection that will let them be happy is more interesting than a simple love story. Still, Loki is a gender-fluid, pansexual god so even if he never hooks up with Sylvie let him find someone to have sex with. The Gator God was giving him bedroom eyes...